A known roof apparatus for a vehicle is disclosed in JPH07-205661A (hereinafter referred to as Patent reference 1). The roof apparatus disclosed in the Patent reference 1 includes a guide rail provided at a side edge of an opening portion, a drive shoe slidably mounted within a guide groove of the guide rail and rotatably supporting a lift link, and a driven shoe slidably mounted within the guide groove and rotatably supporting a support link. A guide pin of the lift link is inserted into a cam groove formed on the support link so that the lift link and the support link, structuring a link mechanism together, interope rate each other to support a movable panel.
A check member which is rotatably supported by the driven shoe and is interoperated with the drive shoe via a cam mechanism is disposed within the guide groove. A connection pin, which is provided at the drive shoe and connects the drive shoe and the lift link, is inserted into a cam recessed portion formed on the check member so that the check member interoperates with the drive shoe.
Further, the check member integrally includes a contact portion, which is configured to contact a stopper provided at the guide rail, and a detachable portion which is configured to attach to and detach from a recessed hole formed on the guide rail. The check member is arranged so that the detachable portion faces the recessed hole in a state where the contact portion and the stopper contacts each other, and the detachable portion is attachable and detachable relative to the recessed hole by a rotation of the check member relative to the driven shoe about a pin. For example, when the connection pin of the drive shoe is positioned at a horizontally configured portion of the cam recessed portion, an engagement of the detachable portion and the recessed hole is maintained so that a sliding movement of the driven shoe together with the check member along the guide groove is stopped. On the other hand, when the connection pin of the drive shoe is positioned at the cam configured portion of the cam recessed portion, the engagement of the detachable portion and the recessed hole is canceled so that the driven shoe enables to slide along the guide groove together with the check member.
In a state where the movable panel is fully closed, the contact portion and the stopper contact each other and the detachable portion and the recessed hole engage each other. Then, when the drive shoe slides in a rearward direction of a vehicle along the guide groove in this state, the lift link rotates so as to recline relative to the guide rail in response to an action of the cam groove and the guide pin. In those circumstances, because the connection pin of the drive shoe moves only within the horizontally configured portion of the cam recessed portion, the drive shoe cannot slide along the guide groove. Thus, the movable panel slides downwardly in response to the reclining rotation of the lift link to establish a sliding attitude.
After the movable panel approximately establishes the sliding attitude, the connection pin of the drive shoe starts moving within the cam configured portion of the cam recessed portion, and thus the driven shoe is slidable along the guide groove together with the check member in a manner mentioned above. Then, when the connection pin of the drive shoe reaches a rear end of the cam configured portion of the cam recessed portion, a driving force of the drive shoe is transmitted to the driven shoe via the check member, and thus the driven shoe slides in the rearward direction of the vehicle along the guide groove together with the check member and the drive shoe. Accordingly, the movable panel slides while maintaining the sliding attitude to establish an open state.
According to the roof apparatus for the vehicle disclosed in the Patent reference 1, the check member extends in a front-rear direction of the vehicle, the contact portion of the check member and the stopper contact each other in the vicinity of a front end portion of the opening portion, and the engagement of the detachable portion and the recessed hole is maintained in the vicinity of a rear end portion of the opening portion. Further, a height of the check member is determined to be smaller than a height of the guide groove in order to allow a rotation of the check member in an upward-downward direction of a vehicle within the guide groove. Thus, there is a possibility that the detachable portion is disengaged from the recessed hole because of a generation of a flexure at the check member which displaces the detachable portion in the downward direction. Particularly, in a case where the check member is made from a material which is likely to flex, for example, a resin member, possibilities that the detachable portion is disengaged from the recessed hole further increase. When the detachable portion is disengaged from the recessed hole at an undesired position, a tilting movement of the movable panel from the closed state is assumed to be unstable, which may decrease reliability of the roof apparatus for the vehicle.
A need thus exists for a roof apparatus for a vehicle which is not susceptible to the drawback mentioned above.